Poaching of elephants, rhinoceros and other wildlife into extinction

While the animals roam over very large areas, the areas are unpopulated and thus can be monitored from the skies, and herds can be tracked to further hone in on animals' locations.

By whom, with what resources and under who's oversight can these vast areas be sufficiently monitored from the sky. Also, just monitoring the area (assuming you could effectively do so) isn't enough to stop poaching. What mechanism(s) will you put in place that will discourage/stop poaching from happening and how does that hook into your monitoring program? Understand, I'm not disagreeing with you per se, just asking questions about method. Time and again you'll find yourself back at the lack of education and law in the area you're trying to 'police'.

The vast majority of elephant and rhinoceros deaths have nothing to do with having eaten a subsistence farmer's crop and everything to do with sending its tusks/horn to China.

And as soon as you break out your magic lamp and manage to wish the ivory market away, that will have meaning.

You have a certain set of moral beliefs regarding elephants and rhinoceros. Trying to sell me on those moral beliefs isn't worthwhile, since I'm not calling ivory poachers to kill the elephants roaming my backyard.

And if you're trying to sell the barely literate Africans living on pennies a day, you're going to need to come up with something a lot better than "boy, elephants and rhinoceros are really nifty".

The fact is that you're trying to impose your moral beliefs on others. Well, if you're planning to do that, you need to be aware that generally the only way people adopt moral beliefs contrary to their immediate needs is if you hold a gun to their heads. If you're willing to invade and occupy those nations to protect elephants and rhinoceros, then you have a chance of being successful.

I suspect you aren't. Which means you'll be very disappointed in the outcome of your moral disapproval of the actions of the average African citizen.

And if you're trying to sell the barely literate Africans living on pennies a day, you're going to need to come up with something a lot better than "boy, elephants and rhinoceros are really nifty".

This isn't the demographic of the helicopter riding poacher or ivory buyers. Try again?

It is, however, the demographic of the people who live in the vicinity of the elephants and rhinoceros. The basic point remains the same: you want to inflict your values on someone else, but are unwilling to do anything that would accomplish that goal. So why are you complaining?

And if you're trying to sell the barely literate Africans living on pennies a day, you're going to need to come up with something a lot better than "boy, elephants and rhinoceros are really nifty".

This isn't the demographic of the helicopter riding poacher or ivory buyers. Try again?

It is, however, the demographic of the people who live in the vicinity of the elephants and rhinoceros. The basic point remains the same: you want to inflict your values on someone else, but are unwilling to do anything that would accomplish that goal. So why are you complaining?

There are already domestic reserves. I don't have to push my values in any way. The bulk of the problem lies in poachers with military grade equipment, international black market smuggling operations, and a market with a demand for the goods.

The amount of poaching done by the locals is relatively small and manageable. The private reserves do a good job keeping that out, and the public reserves are huge and can survive some small scale harms.

And if you're trying to sell the barely literate Africans living on pennies a day, you're going to need to come up with something a lot better than "boy, elephants and rhinoceros are really nifty".

This isn't the demographic of the helicopter riding poacher or ivory buyers. Try again?

It is, however, the demographic of the people who live in the vicinity of the elephants and rhinoceros. The basic point remains the same: you want to inflict your values on someone else, but are unwilling to do anything that would accomplish that goal. So why are you complaining?

There are already domestic reserves. I don't have to push my values in any way. The bulk of the problem lies in poachers with military grade equipment, international black market smuggling operations, and a market with a demand for the goods.

The amount of poaching done by the locals is relatively small and manageable. The private reserves do a good job keeping that out, and the public reserves are huge and can survive some small scale harms.

You're not getting it. You've got two groups here. One is a group of people who are interested in the product. The other is a group of people who live in the vicinity and are complacent about the first.

You want to impose your values on both groups. I'm not saying those values are wrong, but unless you're willing to use force, it's unlikely you'll succeed in changing their minds. Do you think staring disapprovingly from thousands of miles away is likely to work?

You want to impose your values on both groups. I'm not saying those values are wrong, but unless you're willing to use force, it's unlikely you'll succeed in changing their minds. Do you think staring disapprovingly from thousands of miles away is likely to work?

Have you not been paying attention? Half the replies in this thread have been about sending over men with guns to put bullets in the poachers heads. The problem is not the poor farmer who kills an elephant so his family won't starve, it's organized criminals who are doing it purely to get rich.

You're not getting it. You've got two groups here. One is a group of people who are interested in the product. The other is a group of people who live in the vicinity and are complacent about the first.

You want to impose your values on both groups. I'm not saying those values are wrong, but unless you're willing to use force, it's unlikely you'll succeed in changing their minds. Do you think staring disapprovingly from thousands of miles away is likely to work?

Your second group has already more or less agreed, there is no imposed values. Five African countries created the 171,000 square mile Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. It houses 44% of Africa's elephant population. Africans created the 2000 square mile Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. Africans created the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, nearly 36,000 sq miles.

These giant areas are being poached in a small way by locals, but they have limited ability to penetrate into the park, so the impact is small. They're being poached in a large way by paramilitary groups, who have military hardware including helicopters, to penetrate through the whole park undetected. The paramilitary groups aren't taking meat to feed their families, they cut tusks and leave the animal to rot.

All of this has been explained previously in thread, but I'm happy to do it again.

I'm kinda in the same boat. These animals are up against one of the greatest forces in the universe: economic incentive.

The only way I see making any real change is to create a situation where there is more economic incentive in keeping these animals alive than not. Legal threats don't do it, people commit crimes every day to economically benefit themselves. It doesn't look like tourism is enough to do it.

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Exactly, you don't need an 'occupying force' because you don't need to enforce anything so much as you just need to kill people and scare the wider population from following in their footsteps.

I don't see that being enough. Cops have guns in the US and people still rob banks. If the economic incentive is there, people will chase it, regardless of the risk involved. And they harder you punish them, the rarer the material gets driving the price up even more, enticing more people to take on the risk.

A massive public education campaign to try and rein in the demand side of the equation is probably the best bet, or invent some dirt cheap substitute for ivory that is indistinguishable from the real thing and flood the market with it, but I doubt either or them will come to pass.

The only way I see making any real change is to create a situation where there is more economic incentive in keeping these animals alive than not. Legal threats don't do it, people commit crimes every day to economically benefit themselves. It doesn't look like tourism is enough to do it.

Tourism provides more dollars than the ivory harvest, but it's distributed while the ivory is concentrated.

Your second group has already more or less agreed, there is no imposed values. Five African countries created the 171,000 square mile Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. It houses 44% of Africa's elephant population. Africans created the 2000 square mile Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. Africans created the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, nearly 36,000 sq miles.

These giant areas are being poached in a small way by locals, but they have limited ability to penetrate into the park, so the impact is small. They're being poached in a large way by paramilitary groups, who have military hardware including helicopters, to penetrate through the whole park undetected. The paramilitary groups aren't taking meat to feed their families, they cut tusks and leave the animal to rot.

Those 'paramilitary groups' don't live on some unassailable island fortress. They're part and parcel of the local population. As our good buddy Mao once remarked: "The people are the sea that the revolutionary swims in." You don't get criminal poachers without a population largely blase to their presence.

You can't let your dog do his business in Central Park without getting harassed by the local citizenry to pick it up. That's what happens when the locals actually buy into your schemes.

When you can fly gunships halfway across a continent to hunt large mammals with machine guns, it's a pretty good bet that the locals haven't bought into your conservation scheme.

When you can fly gunships halfway across a continent to hunt large mammals with machine guns, it's a pretty good bet that the locals haven't bought into your conservation scheme.

Or it's just that the local know better than to try and stop armed thugs in gunships from doing whatever the fuck they want. Criminals don't need popular consent, I don't know why you would think they do.

Those 'paramilitary groups' don't live on some unassailable island fortress. They're part and parcel of the local population. As our good buddy Mao once remarked: "The people are the sea that the revolutionary swims in." You don't get criminal poachers without a population largely blase to their presence.

You can't let your dog do his business in Central Park without getting harassed by the local citizenry to pick it up. That's what happens when the locals actually buy into your schemes.

When you can fly gunships halfway across a continent to hunt large mammals with machine guns, it's a pretty good bet that the locals haven't bought into your conservation scheme.

Ugandan military are part and parcel of the Congolese population. That's what you're trying to sell me?

When you can fly gunships halfway across a continent to hunt large mammals with machine guns, it's a pretty good bet that the locals haven't bought into your conservation scheme.

Or it's just that the local know better than to try and stop armed thugs in gunships from doing whatever the fuck they want. Criminals don't need popular consent, I don't know why you would think they do.

Because they do. You don't find many drive-by shootings in Westchester.

Criminals need to a place to live like anyone else, and they can't live amidst a populace that strongly disapproves of their actions.

I guess it only stands to reason that museums would start being ransacked for rhino horn, too... I'm guessing it'll be time for zoos to start harvesting horns on their animals like they used to do with elephants soon.

What would be better is to genetically clone and grow the horn in a vat, thus mass producing it. Of course, purists would just pay more for the real thing regardless.

Rhinoceros horns consist of keratin. Its the same stuff that hair and fingernails are made out of. There is certainly no shortage of it on the planet. Unfortunately this isn't going to convince the people who want it...

What would be better is to genetically clone and grow the horn in a vat, thus mass producing it. Of course, purists would just pay more for the real thing regardless.

The demand is based on irrational non-science beliefs (not even traditional silly non-science beliefs, but brand new ones that have only popped up in the last few years), so coming up with logical solutions isn't really going to help.

The only way I see making any real change is to create a situation where there is more economic incentive in keeping these animals alive than not. Legal threats don't do it, people commit crimes every day to economically benefit themselves. It doesn't look like tourism is enough to do it.

Tourism provides more dollars than the ivory harvest, but it's distributed while the ivory is concentrated.

Yep. Concentrated among the people in charge of enforcing the laws. Unless they can make a better $$ keeping the poachers away, they won't.